During an interview for an engineering position at Gore I was asked to estimate
how many barbers there are in the entire country and explain how I got that
number. Probalby more surprising is that type of "show me how you
think" question isn't that unusual, at least based on this survey.

Most of these questions hail from the Microsoft school of interviewing:
"What does the interviewee do when we throw him a curve ball?" This
might be useful if the interviewers actually knew how to interpret the answers
they get back. Most interviewers are not actually that skillful, but ask this
type of question anyway because it is the "hip" thing to do.

Some interviewers go so far as to expect a real answer from a nonsense
question. It is at that point that an interview can turn ugly.

A defition of a "List" that seems to be very
popular is: A series of names, words, or other items written, printed,
or imagined one after the other: a shopping list; a guest list; a list of things
to do.

Regardless of whether the components of the list are one
below one another or whether the lists include pictures.... they sure are
consecutive in the fact that they are one after the other...

I got the 'Which Kitchen Utensil would you be?' question. I thought
about it maybe 10 seconds and then said I would be the the sharpening steel in a
knife block, or a piece of oiled whetstone--then my core responsibility would be
to maintain all those with whom I came in contact at their optimal level of
performance.

I was complimented on my correct usage of grammar and
syntax, and I was offered the position of executive admin assistant. Once in my
life I did something right.